4 ms·

Here's why: "Hi, I can't be friends with you on Facebook/Twitter/Google+ because although you've been a really great friend to me, you lost your job last year a

Here's why: "Hi, I can't be friends with you on Facebook/Twitter/Google+ because although you've been a really great friend to me, you lost your job last year and it's had a bit of a dent on your credit history." -- or -- "Hey, I don't want to add you to Facebook because I don't know how well you pay your bills." (This isn't a real issue for me because, like the nouveau cool, I deleted my Facebook.) Yes, you could argue the person doing the digital ostracizing is a craptastic piece of shit, but the criteria for friendship shouldn't be creditworthiness. If I had to eliminate otherwise good friends (or funny acquaintances) because I know they've had problems paying their bills, I'd not be a happy bunny. It's trite to highlight this, but credit scores impact all kinds of things, from interest rates, availability of financial products, ease of getting a merchant account, and apparently, how easy it is to get certain jobs. Where does it end? Phone records? Emails? Chat logs? Who you Tweet with most? CCTV hooked up to facial recognition software to figure out who you're going to lunch with? There's nothing good about this and I hope their business fails.

Houshalter 13y ago
You are right, it could create bad incentives. If that is the case then I will agree with you, but many of the people are arguing that it is inherently unjust to use certain things to make predictions, which makes no sense at all. I don't think in practice many people will change their friends over this, and this is only one piece of information being used, so it probably wouldn't have a huge effect if they did so.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  > many of the people are arguing that it is inherently unjust to use certain things to make predictions, which makes no sense at all Would it be wrong to judge my creditworthiness by the fact I'm white and gay if you could find some correlation between those traits and bill paying habits? What if white gays were typically irresponsible with money† (because omg shoes) and as a consequence my credit score is forever (or at least initially) tarnished because I'm a white homo, irrespective of my bill-paying ability. I can see many ethical issues with this. > I don't think in practice many people will change their friends over this, and this is only one piece of information being used, so it probably wouldn't have a huge effect if they did so. LOL. People will do a lot in the name of money. If Ms. Sally wants a mortgage, like really, really, really bad, Ms. Sally is gonna drop her deadbeat Facebook friends and game the fuck out the system. If she's successful, not only is she more likely to be approved for that mortgage, but she'll get a better rate. I think it's naive to believe that any other behavior is being encouraged by this kind of predictive credit scoring. When people figure out how to game a system, they tend to do so. Such signals would quickly be rendered useless, unless you could effectively figure out who is gaming the system, and how hard. †I'm not advocating this idea.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    >Would it be wrong to judge my creditworthiness by the fact I'm white and gay if you could find some correlation between those traits and bill paying habits? What if white gays were typically irresponsible with money† (because omg shoes) and as a consequence my credit score is forever (or at least initially) tarnished because I'm a white homo, irrespective of my bill-paying ability. I can see many ethical issues with this. Yes it seems wrong, but why does it matter what the data is if it's being used to make more accurate predictions? That's the goal. The data being used makes no difference. We aren't talking about humans which are irrational and go "omg I hate gay people and want to make them worse off by refusing to do business with them", this is an unbiased computer algorithm looking to predict how likely you are to pay back your loan. If you really are less likely to pay back your loan than so be it. It can just as easily go the other way and judge in your favor. On average you should expect to benefit from such a policy, not lose from it. >LOL. People will do a lot in the name of money. If Ms. Sally wants a mortgage, like really, really, really bad, Ms. Sally is gonna drop her deadbeat Facebook friends and game the fuck out the system. If she's successful, not only is she more likely to be approved for that mortgage, but she'll get a better rate. I think it's naive to believe that any other behavior is being encouraged by this kind of predictive credit scoring. It will probably be difficult to game the system (just deleting friends doesn't remove your info and might be a red flag that you are trying to do that.) The benefits are probably small (they are using all sorts of other data on top of it to make predictions about you.) And people don't know what the algorithms are or even what information they are using, which makes it harder to figure out how to game it. But even if they do so, so what? That's their choice. The models will be readjusted to fit the new data, and the predictions will still be accurate.
    - kintamanimatt 13y ago
      Judging my creditworthiness based on the creditworthiness of my peers is akin to arresting me if half my friends had been arrested, or giving me a speeding ticket if a third of my friends had received one in the past year. It might indicate I'm more likely to be arrested or drive too fast, but I shouldn't be punished (or rewarded!) because of what other people do. What if 20% of my friends had abused prescription painkillers and I'd just had surgery. Should I be denied a prescription for painkillers because my social circle had a higher than average incidence of drug misuse? Put yourself in the situation that you're punished because of your friends' actions, or the actions of people with the same gender, race, or sexual orientation. You'd feel it's unfair (if you're rational) because it is unfair!

Houshalter 13y ago

You are right, it could create bad incentives. If that is the case then I will agree with you, but many of the people are arguing that it is inherently unjust to use certain things to make predictions, which makes no sense at all. I don't think in practice many people will change their friends over this, and this is only one piece of information being used, so it probably wouldn't have a huge effect if they did so.

kintamanimatt 13y ago
> many of the people are arguing that it is inherently unjust to use certain things to make predictions, which makes no sense at all Would it be wrong to judge my creditworthiness by the fact I'm white and gay if you could find some correlation between those traits and bill paying habits? What if white gays were typically irresponsible with money† (because omg shoes) and as a consequence my credit score is forever (or at least initially) tarnished because I'm a white homo, irrespective of my bill-paying ability. I can see many ethical issues with this. > I don't think in practice many people will change their friends over this, and this is only one piece of information being used, so it probably wouldn't have a huge effect if they did so. LOL. People will do a lot in the name of money. If Ms. Sally wants a mortgage, like really, really, really bad, Ms. Sally is gonna drop her deadbeat Facebook friends and game the fuck out the system. If she's successful, not only is she more likely to be approved for that mortgage, but she'll get a better rate. I think it's naive to believe that any other behavior is being encouraged by this kind of predictive credit scoring. When people figure out how to game a system, they tend to do so. Such signals would quickly be rendered useless, unless you could effectively figure out who is gaming the system, and how hard. †I'm not advocating this idea.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  >Would it be wrong to judge my creditworthiness by the fact I'm white and gay if you could find some correlation between those traits and bill paying habits? What if white gays were typically irresponsible with money† (because omg shoes) and as a consequence my credit score is forever (or at least initially) tarnished because I'm a white homo, irrespective of my bill-paying ability. I can see many ethical issues with this. Yes it seems wrong, but why does it matter what the data is if it's being used to make more accurate predictions? That's the goal. The data being used makes no difference. We aren't talking about humans which are irrational and go "omg I hate gay people and want to make them worse off by refusing to do business with them", this is an unbiased computer algorithm looking to predict how likely you are to pay back your loan. If you really are less likely to pay back your loan than so be it. It can just as easily go the other way and judge in your favor. On average you should expect to benefit from such a policy, not lose from it. >LOL. People will do a lot in the name of money. If Ms. Sally wants a mortgage, like really, really, really bad, Ms. Sally is gonna drop her deadbeat Facebook friends and game the fuck out the system. If she's successful, not only is she more likely to be approved for that mortgage, but she'll get a better rate. I think it's naive to believe that any other behavior is being encouraged by this kind of predictive credit scoring. It will probably be difficult to game the system (just deleting friends doesn't remove your info and might be a red flag that you are trying to do that.) The benefits are probably small (they are using all sorts of other data on top of it to make predictions about you.) And people don't know what the algorithms are or even what information they are using, which makes it harder to figure out how to game it. But even if they do so, so what? That's their choice. The models will be readjusted to fit the new data, and the predictions will still be accurate.
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago
    Judging my creditworthiness based on the creditworthiness of my peers is akin to arresting me if half my friends had been arrested, or giving me a speeding ticket if a third of my friends had received one in the past year. It might indicate I'm more likely to be arrested or drive too fast, but I shouldn't be punished (or rewarded!) because of what other people do. What if 20% of my friends had abused prescription painkillers and I'd just had surgery. Should I be denied a prescription for painkillers because my social circle had a higher than average incidence of drug misuse? Put yourself in the situation that you're punished because of your friends' actions, or the actions of people with the same gender, race, or sexual orientation. You'd feel it's unfair (if you're rational) because it is unfair!